How can educational institutions create courses that impress parents
Time:2025-12-18
Source:Artstep
Firstly, stop and ask yourself the most fundamental question: Who am I really doing this for, and what unique problem am I solving that others cannot solve?
How can we pull out of this suffocating homogenization quagmire and create a "hardcore product" that can impress parents and even make them unable to resist posting it on their social media to promote it.
Step 1: Reject 'big and comprehensive', embrace 'small and beautiful', and establish a refined market positioning.
Many principals have a obsession that their courses should cover all students, afraid of missing any potential clients. The result is that your product has become a "universal glue", seemingly able to stick everything, but in reality, nothing can stick firmly.
The solution is to accurately profile and find your 'angel users'.
Don't say in a vague way, 'My goal is middle school students' anymore. This is too broad. What you need is to pick up the 'surgical knife' and perform precise market cutting.
- Are they students with average grades and a desire to break through bottlenecks, who work hard but fail?
- Are they "academically challenged students" with extremely poor foundations on campus who need to start from scratch?
- Are they the "top students" who have spare energy and pursue academic competitions?
- Are they a "niche group" in a specific school or class that is extremely incompatible with the teaching style of a certain teacher?
……
For example. Similarly, for middle school mathematics, most institutions are positioned as "synchronous tutoring". But what if you could do further segmentation?
For example, through research, you found that there are several key junior high schools in your urban area that particularly like to have their monthly and mid-term exams taken from a book called "Essentials of Final Exam Questions" written by their own teachers. However, the commonly used tutoring books and courses on the market are completely unable to cover it.
At this moment, your opportunity has come. Your precise positioning can be: "Specially designed for students of XX Middle School and XX No.2 Middle School, the 'Campus Final Exam Cracking Special Class'.
All of your promotional materials can directly point to this point: 'Deeply benchmarking the question setting ideas of Teacher Zhou from XX Middle School', 'Elaborate on the transformation of the original question in our school's' Final Question Elaborate', 'In this monthly exam, the score rate of the final question for students has increased by xx%'.
You see, when you reach this level of precision, for the parents of these schools, you are no longer "another math tutoring institution", but "the expert who understands our school's exams the most". Other institutions that talk about "quick score improvement" in a general way immediately lose their competitiveness in front of you.
This is called "Rather than leaving a vague impression in everyone's heart, it is better to establish an irreplaceable authority in a small group of people's hearts
Step 2: Use a "knowledge graph" to reconstruct the curriculum system and create visible professional barriers.
The positioning is accurate, and the next step is to use real hardcore content to support it. The curriculum system of many institutions, in other words, is to break down a textbook into N classes and complete them in order. This is still a 'knowledge transporter'.
Today, I would like to introduce a tool that can completely set you apart: knowledge graph.
Simply put, it is to present all the knowledge points, skill points, and logical relationships between them of the subject you are teaching in a clear and visual manner, like drawing a "treasure hunt map".
For example, the "score" module in primary school mathematics does not exist in isolation. It is associated with "the meaning of division" in the forward direction, extended to "ratio" and "percentage" in the backward direction, and even has a subtle connection with the concept of "algebraic formula" in junior high school. The root cause of a student's poor grades may be a loophole in their understanding of division.
Most institutions teach courses in a linear, chapter by chapter manner. The curriculum based on knowledge graph construction is a networked and map based geoscience.
How to implement it specifically?
I suggest creating a three-tier tiered training module consisting of "Basic Advanced Practical":
1. Basic diagnostic layer: precise scanning, locating breakpoints
Develop a refined diagnostic system using knowledge graphs. Students do not attend classes directly, but first undergo a 'physical examination' through this system. The system can quickly generate a "learning ability diagnosis report" that clearly tells parents: "Your child has a misunderstanding at the node of 'score and division conversion', which directly affects their ability to solve practical problems in the future." This report itself is the ultimate manifestation of professionalism, instantly establishing trust.
2. Advanced learning layer: dynamic path, tailored to individual needs
Generate personalized learning path maps for each student based on the diagnostic report. A student needs to go back to the "division" chapter first, and then move on to "fractions"; B students can directly enter the specialized breakthrough of "score application questions". Your course is no longer a fixed "package", but a "buffet" that can be freely combined. What you sell to parents is no longer just a '48 lesson plan', but an 'exclusive scoring roadmap'. This feeling is completely different.
3. Practical application layer: goal oriented, externalizing results
This layer is the key to making learning outcomes visible. Strongly link the course with real-life application scenarios.
- For courses related to further education, your "practical experience" is precise question taking, simulated interviews, and application guidance. Your achievements are exquisite 'good news of student admission'.
- For literacy courses, your 'practical experience' can be a project-based outcome. For example, after completing a programming course, one not only learns a few commands, but also collaborates to complete a physical "smart watering system". When parents see their children's handmade works running in the living room, the shock is far greater than ten perfect exam papers.
By connecting these three modules through a 'knowledge graph', your course has transformed from a flat 'textbook' into a three-dimensional, diagnostic, pathway based, and productive 'learning solution'.
When your course advisor consults, they no longer present fancy brochures, but this rigorous scientific system and vivid student cases. This kind of dimensionality reduction blow is beyond the reach of homogeneous courses.
The second half of the education and training industry has long passed the era where one could make money by relying on poor information. Extensive management is destined to be eliminated.
To break through, you must complete two transformations:
1. From "flood irrigation" to "drip irrigation": Put away your greed, calm down, find a precise niche market, deeply penetrate, and become the king of this field.
2. From "experience" to "science": Use scientific tools such as "knowledge graphs" to reconstruct your teaching products, transforming the curriculum system from "feeling useful" to "clear and visible, logically coherent, and measurable".
When others are still using the pale rhetoric of 'our teacher is very responsible', you can already confidently talk to parents with 'student knowledge and ability diagnosis report' and 'personalized learning path map'.
When others are still losing customers because their prices are 500 yuan higher than their neighbors, your parents will willingly pay for you and become your loyal spokesperson because they understand my child too well and our school's exam situation too well.
The competitiveness of a product always comes from the depth of creating unique value for users.